The Challenge Encourages Cross-Border Expansion of Mexican Tech Companies to San Antonio

SAN ANTONIO, TX--(Marketwired - Jan 16, 2014) - Geekdom (http://geekdom.com/), the collaborative co-working space where entrepreneurs, technologists and creatives connect to build new businesses, today launched a partnership with competition-based social innovation platform, HeroX, to promote cross-border tech entrepreneurship between San Antonio and Mexico through the San Antonio Entrepreneurial Exchange Challenge. The San Antonio Mx Challenge aims to help turn San Antonio into a world-class tech ecosystem by awarding $500,000 USD to the individual, team or organization that creates and implements a repeatable model to assist Mexican tech companies to open active offices in San Antonio.

Mexico is the second largest economy in Latin America and one of the United States' biggest import/export partners. By the year 2050, it is predicted that Mexico will be one of the top ten economies in the world, and San Antonio's proximity and cultural connections to Mexico give it a head start on reaping the economic benefit of this growth. The goal of the San Antonio Mx Challenge is to make San Antonio famous for its partnership with Mexico by encouraging Mexican entrepreneurs to start their US expansion strategy in San Antonio, and US entrepreneurs to think of San Antonio first when planning their growth strategies into Mexico, Central, and South America.

"This challenge will be the catalyst between the San Antonio startup ecosystem and Mexican Entrepreneurs wishing to expand into the US," said Graham Weston, Co-founder & Chairman of Rackspace Hosting. "We are already famous for this in San Antonio. Now we are going to show the rest of the world."

The San Antonio Mx Challenge is the first to be launched through HeroX, a spinoff of XPRIZE, the world leader in incentivized prize competitions. The partnership combines HeroX's desire to promote open innovation through incentivized competitions to solve both philanthropic and commercial challenges and Geekdom's dedication to creating more tech opportunities in San Antonio. The impact is expected to reach beyond challenge participants and influence the community -- a result both organizations are very proud of.

"I am proud to see the first competition launched on HeroX. It has been my dream for years to offer a platform that allows anyone to use incentive competitions to solve problems and drive innovation," said Dr. Peter Diamandis, Chairman & CEO of XPRIZE and Co-founder & Board Member of HeroX. "By bringing in solutions from anywhere, I'm convinced that competitions like this one will have a bright future both for social issues and for driving innovation faster than we can imagine."

The challenge winner will score the highest on a points-based system that measures: 1) the number of Mexican companies that they attract over two years, 2) the total combined revenue of those companies for each year over two years, 3) the sustainability of those companies, and 4) the sustainability of their model. The challenge will run for 26 months with early registration ending on August 25, 2014 and final registration ending on January 14, 2015.

Challenge competitors will have an opportunity to share their progress with each other at the San Antonio Mx Summit on September 16, 2014 where entrepreneurs and innovators from across Mexico and San Antonio will come together to showcase the city of San Antonio. The event will feature high-profile keynote speakers and smaller breakout sessions where participants can tackle challenges with invited experts and mentors, and join forces to build stronger teams. The first-year leaderboard will be announced on April 1, 2015 followed by the submission deadline on March 15, 2016, and the final winner will be announced on May 4, 2016.

About HeroX:HeroX is a platform where anyone can spur innovation and solve problems by launching a challenge. A spinoff of XPRIZE, the leading organization solving the world's Grand Challenges by creating and managing large-scale, high profile, incentivized prize competitions, and a joint venture with City Light Capital, HeroX harnesses the power and momentum of competition-based innovation to solve both philanthropic and commercial challenges. We provide the tools to make it easy for anyone to frame a problem and to inspire teams to compete to solve it. Everyone wants a chance to be a hero and we'll show you how.

You are HeroX. What's possible together.
For more information, go to www.HeroX.com